‘Game of Thrones’ Season 7 May Be Delayed, and Winter Is to Blame

The light of the seven does not shine on us today.

As we learned in last month’s “Game of Thrones” season finale, winter is finally here. That weather update doesn’t bode well for the denizens of Westeros, nor is it good news for fans of the HBO drama. Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss revealed the change in schedule during, of all things, an appearance of the UFC podcast, saying that the show’s new wintry environs will require production to start later than usual.

“We don’t have an air date yet,” they said. “We’re starting a bit later because, at the end of this season, ‘winter is here.’ And that means that sunny weather doesn’t really serve our purposes anymore. So we kind of pushed everything down the line so we could get some grim, gray weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot.” The most recent season of “Thrones” began this April, which is a typical start date for the show.

Though its endgame is yet to be made official, HBO’s flagship program is expected to run for two more seasons: one consisting of seven episodes, the other of six. “Game of Thrones” has aired six seasons to date, each of them lasting 10 episodes.